Urban art in Lisbon: opportunities, tensions and paradoxes

An emerging art world: The de-subculturalization and artification process of graffiti and pixação in São Paulo

“…Certain cultural fields are intricately linked and in permanent mutation, giving rise to subgenres and new cultural phenomena. In the specialist literature we encounter the terms graffiti (Ferrell, 1996;Macdonald, 2001;Phillips, 1996), post-graffiti (Waclawek, 2011, graffiti art (Austin, 2001(Austin, , 2010Novak, 2017;Stewart, 2009), subway art (Cooper and Chalfant, 1984), muralism (Mendelson-Shwartz and Mualam, 2020), street art (Bengtsen, 2014;Schacter, 2014;Young, 2014), or urban art (Blanché, 2015;Campos, 2021;Campos and Barbio, 2021;Hoppe, 2014;Pavoni, 2019). Often these terms overlap and get mixed up.…”

“…However, it is also important to mention that, in parallel to the more punitive and antagonistic initiatives from public authorities, processes gradually emerged that edge towards finding common ground and encouraging collaborative approaches. Since the turn of the millennium, academic surveys have placed significant focus on this growing tendency in several cities, particularly on the higher incentives for the production of urban art regulated by local authorities (Campos, 2021;Campos and Barbio, 2021;Guinard and Margier, 2017;Mendelson-Shwartz and Mualam, 2020;Novak and Yousof, 2014;Raposo, 2019). São Paulo followed this trend.…”

“…In addition, there is the fact that, as mentioned by Hoppe (2014), an anglophone notion of urban art is not often used, with the preferred term generally being street art. But in some non-Anglo-American contexts its use is common in a broad sense (Blanché, 2015;Campos, 2021;Raposo, 2019), involving expressions from various street visual interventions (political murals, graffiti, pixação, street art).…”

“…Like what is happening across the globe, we are witnessing the gradual de-subculturalization of some forms of graffiti and pixação. In the literature on graffiti and street art several authors have highlighted the dynamics of professionalization, commodification and cooptation (Banet-Weiser, 2011;Kramer, 2010;Molnár, 2018;Ross et al, 2020;Snyder, 2009), as well as of artification and institutionalization (Bengtsen, 2014;Campos, 2021;Campos and Sequeira, 2018). These processes have opened up a new field of opportunities for former and current members of these urban subcultures, since the skills acquired in informal contexts reveal themselves as assets that can be capitalized on in professionalized visual arts (public art, commercial decoration, graphic art, etc.).…”

Pouvoir locale, art urbain et festivalisation de la culture

“…Por um lado, desvendam questões relativas à produção do espaço urbano e aos conflitos que daí podem surgir, nomeadamente no que respeita à gentrificação ou turistificação (Andron, 2018;Campos e Sequeira, 2020;Evans, 2016;Young, 2014). Por outro lado, apontam para questões acerca da forma como o poder e as instituições lidam com estas manifestações, o que remete para a sua instrumentalização, institucionalização e mercantilização, mas também para a patrimonialização e preservação deste legado (Campos, 2021;Campos e Barbio, 2021;Pavoni, 2019). Por último, salientam a adulteração a que se tem assistido, com a arte urbana a encaminhar -se num sentido que contradiz o seu espírito original, de índole popular e marginal (Schacter, 2014).…”